Desire to get an action plan regarding how to retain engineering talent in your company? You are lucky as you will find several truly efficient methods that will come in handy!

During the recent decade, the engineering sphere has demonstrated breathtaking results in terms of innovative technologies. IoT, AI, robotics, and automation are powerfully transforming the way small businesses and startups function. Advanced technologies support companies in optimizing business processes, improving efficiency, and minimizing costs.

More and more businesses and startups are searching for the professional assistance of talented engineers to help them adjust to quick changes. Companies create engineering roles faster than candidates can fill them.

In 2018, Deloitte prepared a detailed overview regarding what is going on in the engineering job market. They assumed that up to 2028, the lack of skillful engineering specialists could leave more than 2 (!) million positions unfilled! This prediction suggests that the solution to manage such engineering challenges will not arrive from the external engineering job market. So, what a potential way out is?

The clue to success is retaining the engineering talents small businesses and startups already have. To do that right, businesses require revising their retention practices.

Nowadays, successful retention of engineering talent consists in delivering the tools and benefits engineers value most. However, identifying those things can be challenging because employee expectations are permanently changing.

Good news! In this article, we support you with several effective ways to retain engineering talent for you to easily get started. But if you also search for places where to find good engineering talent, the best option is to consider B2B marketplaces .

Start Prioritizing Retention

An extremely high percentage of recruiters in the engineering sphere complain that the modern-day engineering skills shortage has made hiring complex for businesses and startups. However, this situation also generated a novel opportunity! In response to a lack of external engineering specialists available on the job market, accentuating the inward as well as optimizing partnerships with existing engineering talent is a great option for employers to retain the top professionals long enough to stand a blow.

So, in case the idea of making retention a top priority in the company has never even come to your mind, you should start momentarily!

Upskill to Retain Engineers

According to the report represented by one more reputable company called McKinsey, more than 60 percent of small businesses and startups who participated in the survey commented that battling the engineering skills gap was one of 5 key priorities in their recruitment strategies. Approximately 28 percent placed this battle in their list of top 3 priorities. Here, retraining current engineering employees became the essential constituent of companies’ strategies for coping with it.

Ignoring the limited engineering talent market in favor of upskilling existing engineers is the most optimal way to solve the problem of the lack of engineering skills. Such an approach also helps to speed up the workforce in all the fields where businesses believe they may have an expertise gap.

Retraining engineering talent that is already on the staff can guarantee that businesses and startups don’t get hurt even more vacancies by getting outplayed by competitors. As far as competition for engineering talent is gaining momentum, competing companies may drive to give quite ambitious offers for a company’s top engineers to get poached. However, in case a company has focused on training existing employees and optimized upskilling strategies, the above-mentioned case will happen truly rarely (like an exception from the rule).

In various surveys, when engineers are asked about the things they appreciate most in an employer, one of the most frequent answers was a diverse training program. When businesses show dedication to the training (and especially retraining) of their engineering teams, they will get the reward of greater loyalty and performance in the future.

It is not a secret that for many engineering professionals exploring their opportunities in the market is the chance for career progression. Don’t think that engineers desire promotion as a must. The desire can appear in the form of skills advancement or the possibility to get growth with the help of individual development plans. When big/small companies and startups invest in their staff, they guarantee a prosperous future for their businesses. Upskilling existing engineering teams help businesses to develop their future leaders.

Boost the Benefits Package

Tight competition for engineering talent has made businesses and startups demonstrate creativity when generating types of benefits and perks for candidates. We advise you to analyze the current benefits you offer. In case the existing offering is non-competitive compared to what offer your rivals, the problem of higher turnover appears.

Engineering specialists that participate in various surveys regarding the main reasons why they change jobs say that they had to leave their companies because of better benefits offered by other businesses.

In time revisions of current benefit packages considering the latest employee expectations can support in retaining the best engineering talent. What should a business or startup offer to current employees so that they don’t even think about leaving? Randstad Holding shared several ideas on that.

According to a 2020 study by the holding, the majority (89 percent) of talented engineers intend to receive perks and perks that could significantly improve their lives. Their wishes look different but the research demonstrates several most frequently mentioned benefits.

The list of the top 5 most desired benefits looks as follows:

  •   Unlimited period regarding vacations;
  •   Half-time Friday working day;
  •   Entire remote work with a flexible schedule;
  •   Babysitting or a kind of financial compensation for kindergarten;
  •   Office territory conveniences like a hospital and gym.

Always Mind Personality Types of Engineers

It is a fact that diverse workplaces are acknowledged to be vital for creating more efficient engineering teams. If a business can establish partner relationships with every member of their engineering teams, you will succeed in retaining your engineers because the atmosphere of understanding and individual approach to every employee is always of great value for them. Moreover, such an approach will encourage your engineers to perform more and more effectively.

To retain engineering talent, it is a must for businesses and startups to realize their teams’ dynamic as every engineer from a team usually adds something personal to the whole team.

There exist 2 most frequently discussed types of personality in any kind of team are considered extroverts and introverts. Your task is to find time to watch and analyze how your team interacts inside. This is a wonderful option to discover the social dynamics in your engineering team. While observing, most probably, you will find that some engineers demonstrate dominance while communicating with others and generally tend to be more active and expressive (they are extroverts) while others are calmer and rarely initiate conversations with colleagues (introverts).

You should build an environment where both personality types possess equal opportunities to express their points of view. When it comes to retaining introverts, your task is to encourage them to share their opinions so that they understand that the company welcomes and appreciates the contribution of every employee despite character type.

You should bear in mind that frequently, the engineers that speak the least possess strong insights to deliver more efficient input to a business.

Talking about extroverts, it is not a problem to get them to say what they think. Here, your task is to stimulate them to be more contemplating. For them to effectively communicate with introverts, encourage them to pause and create a more balanced dialogue.

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